


to eve, beloved

by Riversound



Series: within thee, happier far [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I tagged the pairing, M/M, Season 9 Spoilers, actually it's mostly a character study, but it's not super shippy, of Missy and her relationship with Clara, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6077523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riversound/pseuds/Riversound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she was he and he was young, he knew a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to eve, beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is pretty rough. I pretty much slapped it down and am posting it, sooooo... Yeah. 
> 
> Also, major kudos to you if you can make sense of it, cause I'm pretty sure it's incoherent. Feel free to comment with theories. I'd really like to know what it all looks like to you ^^

I.

When she was he and he was young, he knew a girl. She was small and brown, small and fierce, small and brave and smart. She was small and transient; she had only one life, as he did then. 

“You two are light and shadow,” she said.

“Which is which?” he asked. Silence glimmered behind his teeth. 

“I'm not sure,” she said, and frowned. She died not long after. She never did tell him which.

II.

“You love me,” she tells him, because she knows him best. 

“I love you,” he tells her, like it’s new. In a way, it is. 

III.

The Girl Who Died wears a blue dress and a familiar face. She has never met the Girl before. 

“He told me about you,” says the Girl. “Not with words. But with everything else.”

“What did he say?” she asks, uncertain whether the answer is something she wants or something she needs or neither or both.

“I don't remember,” says the Girl. “I don't remember a lot of things.”

“What happened to Me?”

“You chose.”

“Not me, Me. The other one, the short one.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Immortal teenager, diaries, kind of killed you? I thought you traveled together.” The walls are so white, the floor so smooth, the air so thin. This is a room with ghosts; she should know. No other breath stirs recycled oxygen. 

“I don't remember a lot of things,” says the Girl. The Girl smiles. The Girl shivers. The Girl smiles. 

“You're dead,” she says, realization given sound. Truth or a metaphor, fact or a lie. 

“Perhaps,” agrees the girl. “I don't remember a lot of things, but I think I remember him. I hope I remember him. I think- I do. I know his face. I know yours. I know- I think. I remember. I remember. I need to remember. I don't remember. I remember him. I do.” The Girl smiles: wide eyes, round cheeks, mad light, soft lips peeled back around smooth-swept teeth. The Girl’s face is familiar. She has never met her. 

“Who are you?” she asks. 

“I don’t remember,” says the Girl. The Girl cries. The Girl smiles. The Girl laughs.

“What is your name?”

“I haven’t one.”

Not so long ago, she would have told her. She would have spat the Girl’s name and left, forced glass shards down that throat and walked away. She still wants to. She does not.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and leaves. Behind her, tears hiss acidic black trails through caked foundation as the Girl cries- as the Girl screams- as the Girl Who Died simply smiles.

IV.

Here is a story about her best friend:

Long ago, her best friend was much the same as he is now: he was reckless, and moral, and wild. They were wild together. He was light when (she) was dark and shadow when (she) glowed, their orbits were one, they were each other’s everything, they were each other. 

Her best friend was restless and reckless, fearful as he was fanciful, and when he wanted to sail away, that was what he did. And that Girl, the one who claimed they were darkness and light, guided him into the galaxy, towards everything, away from his everything. 

(She) hated that Girl. She still hates that Girl. 

(But isn’t that a lie? She’s far too good at lying. She deceives herself, most of the time.)

V.

For him, in a heartbeat, she would raze a galaxy. For him, in a heartbeat, she would deconstruct the universe to its constituent pieces. 

Even for him, it takes several moments’ deliberation to find it in herself to work with the Girl. 

It's not that she resents needing help. It's not that she is too prideful to stoop to cooperation with a human. It's this human, this one Girl, that she resents, the one who pointed him to his path away from her so long ago. She is excellent at holding grudges. 

She is not a kind person; kindness is rarely the most expedient path to what she wants, so she has hardly bothered to learn it. She has learned perception. She has learned understanding, or some form of it. She begins to understand, somewhat. It is not enough for forgiveness, yet. But it is a foundation. 

She aims for the irony and gets trapped in it- she escapes- she waits. She travels, for a while, meets some mayflies, causes some havoc. She does what she was born to do. 

She waits for a long time. 

VI.

When galaxies and faces and planets have all folded over under around, when the wrinkles in time align just so, she finds a shop in the middle of a desert. She enters, empties a clatter of coin onto cold countertop and waits for recognition. The Girl Who Died wears a blue dress and a familiar face, serves a smoothie and a smile while jazz buzzes from a radio in a corner. 

She has never met this Girl before. 

VII.

Stubbornness is a trait of hers. She is dogged in pursuit, prodigious in grievances remembered. Adaptability is another facet of her; she learns and plans and shifts as quickly as the threads of time can twist. These two halves usually coexist. Sometimes, however, they compete. 

In a slick, clean space, all brightness and vinyl, a grudge battles a newly found pity. The smiling Girl who she hates, who has been woven so thoroughly into space and time that the Girl is stretched impossibly thin, who is, suddenly, real to her. 

Once upon a time, nothing like this would have inspired her pity. Now, after so long, she sees the Girl in herself, a premonition of what will someday be. Self-pity. That one’s nothing new. 

Hate and horror grapple within her as smiles and memories rage in the Girl, and eventually the hate is what gives. She sips her drink. She pushes down the mean satisfaction of a name. She goes. 

It's selfish, what she does. That doesn't mean it's not also a little like being kind. 

VIII.

When she was he and he was young, he knew a girl. She was brown and fierce with sun and fire. She was brave. She was smart. She called him light- or shadow- or neither- or both. She died soon after his best friend left, her single life flaking from her form like ash. 

She wasn’t small at all.


End file.
